NEW YORK -- Every geek who's any geek has been to a Douglas Repetto event, whether they know it or not.

As founder of the tech meet-and-greet dorkbot events, and the annual robot talent show ArtBots, Repetto has organized exhibits and meetings that have made it easier for geeks everywhere to learn about new, cool tech projects in their communities.

He started dorkbot and ArtBots in New York in 2000 and 2002, respectively, out of a desire to share his own tech creations with others. Since then, both have gone international, with dorkbot chapters springing up from San Francisco to Budapest, and ArtBots staging a 2005 show in Dublin, Ireland.

As if this wasn't enough, Repetto also has a day job, as director of Columbia University's Computer Music Center.

Repetto recently took some time out from packing a robotic painting machine for an upcoming event to chat about how dorkbot and ArtBots have evolved, and what life is like for one of Wired News' 10 sexiest geeks of 2005.

Wired News: Tell us how dorkbot came about. Where did the idea for it stem from and what was the first meeting like?

Douglas Repetto: The specific way dorkbot came about was I moved to New York City and I was leaving a place -- I 'd been working up at Dartmouth College, which is in a pretty isolated place, for a few years. It was really wonderful and I had some great friends there but it was also an extremely small community; virtually no one doing the kinds of things I was doing or was involved in.

So when I came to New York I really wanted to get involved with people. I really wanted to expand socially and collaboratively.... And so I ... had this idea that it would be fun to just sort of send out a blanket call to say, "Hey, if you're doing neat stuff, I'd like to, you know, hang out with you." So the idea was an adult show-and-tell, more or less.

WN: Do you remember when the first meeting was, or what it was like?

Repetto: The first meeting was on Dec. 6, 2000, and it was very small. I don't know exactly how many people were there ... maybe 10. I just sent out an e-mail to everyone I could think of and to various schools around the city and art departments, engineering departments, etcetera, but, you know, it was just some random e-mail these people got and they had no real reason to pay attention to it.

Mostly it was people from around Columbia that showed up because I knew a few people at that point. And it was small; it was just in one of the classrooms here at the Computer Music Center. It really established the form that we've used ever since, which was it was just three short, sort of informal, casual presentations on things that we were working on.

So I gave a presentation on some very old software of mine and then a man named Michael Gogins gave a presentation on some sound synthesis software he had written and then Brian Whitman, who was a friend of mine who was in engineering here at Columbia, gave a presentation on some of his work as well.

WN: What kinds of presenters have you seen over the years? What's been your favorite, or what have been some that you just remember? And also, what has happened to some of the presenters?